Need to build a mid-level computer

Been out of the computer thing for a while, so I don't know what's the best bang for the buck build is right now.
Q9450. Seems like the new hotness?
8800GT was a bargain for performance last I read when it first came out.
Dunno about mobo or chipset.
Help.

Get the best motherboard you can afford, and buy the largest RAM sticks it can hold -- you don't need to max out the RAM or CPU right now, but make sure you don't need to throw anything away when you upgrade it later on.

Put it in a steel case. Plastic and aluminum are fine as a faceplate, but they're not strong enough to protect the computer in case it gets smacked.

Not if you can't afford to max out the machine in one shot -- it's better than buying cheap parts and then throwing them all away in a couple of years. Three years from now, a good older motherboard upgraded with the best CPU it can hold and the most RAM it can hold will run just fine compared to newer mid-level machines.

Not if you can't afford to max out the machine in one shot -- it's better than buying cheap parts and then throwing them all away in a couple of years. Three years from now, a good older motherboard upgraded with the best CPU it can hold and the most RAM it can hold will run just fine compared to newer mid-level machines.

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not really.

Buying low end means you replace much more often.

Buying high end is financially silly since it depreciates so quickly (both financially and it terms of "what's hot".

Build a SOLID machine today, use it a few years, and toss it away and build another.

Buying a few high-end components, wasting your budget, and filling the rest of the box with crap is going to lead to problems now, and isn't gonna help worth a fuck later on.

Case in point:

Theoretically if you had a $400 budget for cpu/mem/mobo 3 years ago you could get a normal $100 mobo, spend $100 on memory, and get a $200 cpu. It would be a solid system. Of course now, you'd have to replace it if you want a new machine... The cpu sockets have changed for AMD and although the socket is the same for intel, none of the chipsets of that era support current-gen stuff. The memory has also changed from DDR to DDR2. And you guessed it: not compatible.

Take the same budget and waste $250 on the high-end mobo and you still need $100 on memory (or more) and you only have $50 left for a shitty cpu. Say you go OVER budget by $100 and you still only get a $150 cpu. And guess what? You STILL have to throw it all away!

Get a SOLID machine today, accept the fact that technology changes like I change my underwear, and that you WILL throw it away in a few years.

I say it again: Buying hardware today with intent to "upgrade" it tomorrow is RETARDED.

Three years ago's super-high-end $250 mobo doesn't support the cpu's of today.

Not everyone has the kinda of budget to build a supercomputer...
Anyways I priced this out the other night.
Q9450 $330
Evga 8800GT Superclocked $156 (ya ya I can OC it myself, but it's only $5 more than the "regular" one)
G. Skill 2x2GB DDR2 1066 $110
Lian Li PC7B. $100.

Not sure on the mobo or PSU. probably something 650W+ modular.
Will probably get a 500GB+ Barracuda or one of those Samsung F1 drives.

Not everyone has the kinda of budget to build a supercomputer...
Anyways I priced this out the other night.
Q9450 $330
Evga 8800GT Superclocked $156 (ya ya I can OC it myself, but it's only $5 more than the "regular" one)
G. Skill 2x2GB DDR2 1066 $110
Lian Li PC7B. $100.

Not sure on the mobo or PSU. probably something 650W+ modular.
Will probably get a 500GB+ Barracuda or one of those Samsung F1 drives.

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if you know how to oc, you save $$ by getting a Q6600 instead. It's 9X multiplier will give you higher clocks than the Q9450's 8X multi.
get a Radeon 4850
DDR2-800 is more than enough, DDR2-1066 if you want to reach higher clocks

If there's anything you should have learned from Intel vs AMD, is that clock speed doesn't mean shit.

First of hall, penryn has better performance per clock than conroe.
Second of all, it has much less power usage, which means less heat, which means smaller electricity bills, in both power draw on the CPU, and cooling costs. This also means higher FSB.

If there's anything you should have learned from Intel vs AMD, is that clock speed doesn't mean shit.

First of hall, penryn has better performance per clock than conroe.
Second of all, it has much less power usage, which means less heat, which means smaller electricity bills, in both power draw on the CPU, and cooling costs. This also means higher FSB.

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picard.jpg

lulz, since when did Penryn become a new architecture?

it's penryn and conroe, same Core 2 architecture.
a 2.6GHz Conroe will outperform a 3GHz Pentium D because that belongs to the old arch. same reason why you can't directly compare AMD's K8 to K10.

but in this case, same architecture, their clocks are very close.
I'm not saying 3GHz Conroe = 3GHz Penryn, more like 3.2GHz Conroe = 3GHz Penryn more or less.

Penryn is a die shrink, SSE4, larger L2 caches on some, an improved divider, and cpu factory fsb.
these diffs translates to 0%-15% advantage over Conroe depending on the app,... but its freakin 69% more expensive.
A cheaper and faster clocked Conroe will compensate for that diff.

less power usage? less heat? wut?
a Q6600 SLACR consumes 95W and a thermal spec of 71C
same as the Q9450

no problems with the (wolfdales) dual cores (E8400, E8500, etc). those have 9X, 9.5X multipliers.

the old Kentsfields (Q6600, Q6700) have 9X, 10X, and the unlocked Extreme version
the Yorkfields (Q9300, Q9450, etc) have 7.5X, 8X, 8.5X, and the unlocked Extreme version
as you can see, the new quads have lower multipliers
note that the extreme versions are expensive shit

both overclock very well, but the higher the multi, the better. it all depends on you other components too (mobo, ram).
if the architecture is different, this won't mean shit.
as i've said above, they are in the same Core 2 architecture family with a few differences.
and then there's price.

if you don't overclock, what I said won't matter, so get the Q9450 if you can afford it.

it's penryn and conroe, same Core 2 architecture.
a 2.6GHz Conroe will outperform a 3GHz Pentium D because that belongs to the old arch. same reason why you can't directly compare AMD's K8 to K10.

but in this case, same architecture, their clocks are very close.
I'm not saying 3GHz Conroe = 3GHz Penryn, more like 3.2GHz Conroe = 3GHz Penryn more or less.

Penryn is a die shrink, SSE4, larger L2 caches on some, an improved divider, and cpu factory fsb.
these diffs translates to 0%-15% advantage over Conroe depending on the app,... but its freakin 69% more expensive.
A cheaper and faster clocked Conroe will compensate for that diff.

less power usage? less heat? wut?
a Q6600 SLACR consumes 95W and a thermal spec of 71C
same as the Q9450

lawl. 45nm vs 65nm means a ~50mm difference in die size. The TPM difference on the two is huge, real world tests have shown that, regardless of the conservative intel specs.
Q9450
http://www.itsjohnnybravo.com/Overclocking/Q9450/Q9450%20Prime95.JPG[IMG]